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Screen shot of the game

I'm playing a video game (Final Fantasy VI), in which a character is reading her lines and stage directions for a play. The stage directions contain the following sentence:

この芝居を間奏の間にこなしてちょ。

I don't understand こなしてちょ. I think it's the verb こなす inflected to こなし plus て, and then ちょ added to that, but I don't know what ちょ is. I think this is some sort of command form.

My question: what is ちょ?

Here are my guesses:

  1. こなしてちょ　←　こなしててよ　←　こなしていてよ
  2. こなしてちょ　←　こなしてちょうだい

I think the first is plausible because it's similar to ちゃ ← ては, and I think the second is plausible because it's similar to the な command form shortened from なさい. However, I can't tell if either of my guesses is correct. (I have a feeling I'm likely to be wrong...)

Sometimes 大辞林 lists colloquial contractions, so I decided to look it up. There is one entry for ちょ, but it doesn't seem like the right answer. It says it attaches to nouns and the roots of adjectives, and this doesn't seem like either of those. (But maybe て can be considered a noun...?)

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    I wasn't sure how to tag this question. If anyone would like to re-tag it with something more appropriate, it would be appreciated :-) –  May 20 '13 at 20:17
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    どこの辞書にも載ってないみたいで・・・http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1462443644　これくらいしか見つけられません –  May 20 '13 at 20:40
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    そ～いえば・・・アラレちゃんって、予告編でいつも最後に「絶対見てちょ。ばいちゃ。」って言ってました。http://jikainoyokoku.blog23.fc2.com/blog-entry-1090.html　ビデオはこれくらいしか・・・http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEAq_L0oeiE&list=PL0BB18D55321C9D33　（←26秒のところ） –  May 20 '13 at 21:00
  • I don't have any evidence right now but I've seen this to mean ちょうだい many times.. is there a reason why people aren't going to that by default? – ssb Aug 18 '13 at 05:30
  • This doesn't directly answer the question, but quoting the bottom of http://ffdic.wikiwiki.jp/?%A5%B9%A5%C8%A1%BC%A5%EA%A1%BC%2F%A1%DA%A5%AA%A5%DA%A5%E9%A1%DB: "控え室では、コーラスの台本を読むことができるが、 「（この芝居を間奏の間にこなしてちょ。～ダンチョーより。）」なんて砕けた感じで書いてある。[このセリフ](http://ffdic.wikiwiki.jp/?%A5%BB%A5%EA%A5%D5%2F%A1%DA%A5%B4%A5%E1%A5%F3%A4%C1%A4%E3%A1%BC%A4%A4%A1%DB)もこんな雰囲気から出たのかもしれない。". IIRC the 団長 didn't really speak with a 方言, so I'm thinking they might've wanted him to sound cute/child-like here (ちょうだい itself is mainly used by children/women quoting Daijisen, so maybe that was the intended effect(???)) – cypher Aug 19 '13 at 00:37
  • @cypher Oh, thank you! That's pretty interesting. I don't understand "quoting Daijisen", though... are you saying people only say ちょうだい if they happen to be women or children quoting a particular dictionary? –  Aug 19 '13 at 22:32
  • @snailboat Yes (or that it's mainly used by women/children, maybe not exclusively). I was quoting Daijisen's definition at http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%A1%E3%82%87%E3%81%86%E3%81%A0%E3%81%84&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=12138700: "2.（多く、女性・子供の用いる語）" – cypher Aug 19 '13 at 22:39
  • @cypher Hah, I parsed your sentence very poorly. I thought it was the women/children who were quoting Daijisen ;-) –  Aug 19 '13 at 22:40

2 Answers2

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According to yutaro82さん on this Chiebukuro post, it sounds like this 「〜ちょ」 could possibly be part of 名古屋弁{なごやべん}.

Looking at this list of words within 名古屋弁{なごやべん} shows that「ちょう」can translate to the standard Japanese word「ください」.

Both of these references don't appear to give an exact reason as to why「ちょう」came to be used to mean「ください」(at least in 名古屋弁{なごやべん},) but your second guess (and in particular,「ちょうだい」) could very well be where this word originated... though I can't state that with absolute certainty.

summea
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According to this edit to the Wikipedia article on 名古屋弁, ちょ seems to be a shortened form of ちょうせ (the imperative form of ちょうす, which is the 尊敬語 form of くれる).

execjosh
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